Hardscaping Professionals in Albany, CA

“Ian is great! Our backyard needed a lot of help - starting with the deck, which had some funky stairs, and no charm at all. Ian designed and built a great and sturdy deck, a concrete walkway and designed the landscape along our side yard. I love his design sense: simple, sleek, modern - and very cool! He pays great attention to detail and you can tell he really enjoys his work. He is also reliable and very professional, and fun to work with! I look forward to having Ian design our front yard soon and I would recommend him without hesitation.”

“Rafat was a pleasure to work with and is not only very knowledgeable but has wonderful taste in design. We are delighted with our garden.”

“My garden had good bones but the plants were all wrong. I wanted a garden that looked natural but well-kept, a tough aesthetic to pull off. I wanted lots of birds and butterflies. Mariposa Gardening has taken care of my garden for a few years now. The principal, Andrea Hurd, started by editing the original sorry collection of misplaced plants, replacing the losers with absolute winners. I now have a beautiful variety of textures, colors, shapes and sizes. Something is in bloom in all seasons. We are overrun with birds and, in season, with butterflies. Her maintenance crews have done a great job of keeping her work looking good. The trees are elegantly pruned; each one displays that gold standard "looks like it grew that way" look. Any special request that I make is quickly taken care of. Sometimes I get treats, in the form of new flowers or vegetable starts (I love foraging in my own back yard). In short I am completely happy with Mariposa Gardening and Design.”

“I just completed a remodel of my pool and landscaping with the Alder Group, and simply stated I could not be happier. From the first meeting until the project was completed, Don always looked for ways to improve the project and at the same time ways to minimize the cost of the project. His keen eye for design saw needed simple improvements that were relatively inexpensive but had a massive effect on the overall beauty of the project. Perhaps most importantly when the manufacturer delivered the wrong custom coping, and I worried that we would not be able to meet the deadline of a large party that was planned for my backyard; Don found a way to resolve the issue and keep the job on schedule. Don is truly one of the good guys.”

“Ferdi Castillo is an amazing talent with landscape design, who also happens to be kind, warm and funny too. A delight to work with and I couldn't be happier with the finished product. Our home has a very difficult site, a huge elevation gain/drop, limited space, just a weird, bizarre site. What he created surpassed anything I could ever come up with and he was very flexible with our limited budget. We now are using our space so much more efficiently than ever before. He is so easy to talk to and work with, we were sad when our project ended with him. I would absolutely recommend him. Friends of ours, neighbors, etc. come over and notice our big changes and ask who the genius is behind it: Ferdi Castillo. Hire him, your yard (and family) will thank you!”

“Audrey is great! Creative, knowledgeable and fun. She will work with you to create something unique and lasting. She has done two projects for us and continues to do the on-going maintenance to keep the garden fresh and lively. She cares about soil health, plant growth and is also knowledgable about water systems and the latest in drought irrigation technology.”

“Sarah Ray and her design build firm are nothing short of exceptional. Sarah and her crew restored our trust in the home service industry after experiencing a botched home interior addition & remodel seven years ago. Our experience with Sarah now sets the gold standard for any home service provider we hire in the future. We spent a month carefully interviewing 6 landscape designers, architects, and design-build firms. Sarah was always the front runner and knew the second we hired her that we initiated a great partnership and were embarking on an awesome ride! And it was, on every front. Sarah is not only a talented visionary, designer and expert in her field, but a great listener, collaborator and partner. We have a large flat backyard (about 5000 sq. ft.) that was overgrown and neglected. We had ideas of the style and design elements that we liked, but it was overwhelming to think of how to get there! Having Sarah shepherd us through the design to build process was a privilege and an experience I will always treasure. She is extremely approachable, upbeat, patient, and easy to work with. She was very open to listening to our ideas and iterating on design options together. We also hired Sarah to build/implement our master design plan. A full design-build firm appealed to us because of the seamless and efficient implementation of the design. Sarah is also very available throughout the build process and was onsite nearly every day, as was her foreman. Sarah also met us countless times at various suppliers so that we could carefully select our materials. Her build crew is talented and very hard working. They started at 7:30am and worked for 7-8 hours/day, sweltering hot conditions or not. We really appreciated the undivided attention and the integrity and all-around work ethic displayed by Sarah and her crew. You will also find Sarah to be very transparent. Her billing system is the most logical and straight forward approach I have experienced in the home service industry. The invoice is directly tied to our contracted line items whereby charges reflect only percentages completed on a weekly basis. All change orders were at my request, and were only represented in the invoice if we agreed to it prior. There were no hidden costs or surprises. So, aside from my change orders, the project cost aligned with the signed contracted budget. Sarah created a gorgeous garden space that is everything we ever dreamed of and much more. Our family is looking forward to enjoying this beautiful extension of our home, our new found sanctuary, for years to come. Sarah Ray Design comes highly recommended for any size project. Thanks a million, Sarah!”

“As many of you know Northern California is having its worst drought in pretty much ever. So in helping to conserve water, my hubby and I decided to remove our lawn while using the city of Napa's cash for grass incentive. The incentive pays you back $1 for each square foot of lawn you remove. I'd recommend looking into this in your own city to see whats available. With the lawn coming out we decided to take the opportunity to make some drastic changes to the exterior of our home including painting, lighting, new front door and of course landscaping. While choosing paint colors and fixtures is easy for me, designing a landscape is not. So I reached out to my FB friends and received a recommendation for Patrick Lannan Designs. After seeing his portfolio we were thrilled at the chance to work with someone so talented. Let me just say, from design to installation Patrick was a dream to work with. Not only is he a professional but he's also an excellent communicator and project coordinator. He and his team got the plantings in but also irrigation and lighting systems installed in the course of a weekend (take a look at the night time photos). One of the fun things of the process was walking through Flora Grubb with Patrick as our guide. This place is super cool! He showed us amazing plants and succulents that would work great in Napa. It's a lot warmer in Napa so it was important that the selections matched our climate. As you can see from the photos our project turned out to be pretty amazing. Patricks keen eye for color, shape and detail helped to take our boring beige house and turn into the jewel of the neighborhood. If you're not sure what to do with your landscaping I'd highly recommend reaching out to Patrick.”

“Sue Miller of Miller Landscape Architecture took our weedy, uneven, unusable backyard and transformed it into a beautiful terraced garden perfect for relaxing and entertaining. She patiently listened to our thoughts and concerns, and designed and developed a plan that reflects our lifestyle. We now have expansive outdoor living space that fully suits our needs, including native plant gardens, lawn, horseshoe pit play area, deck/pergola, multiple flights of custom cut flagstone stairs, and a flagstone patio. We benefitted from Sue's design talent and construction experience, as well as her ease in working with contractors. She kept us updated throughout a multi-phased construction process, while providing suggestions and soliciting our input. We highly recommend working with Miller Landscape Architecture.”

“We hired Rani to design our yard a year and a half ago and have been so happy with it! (See photos for San Mateo Redwoods.) It's perfect for entertaining, as well as family time. She listened to what we wanted, came back with several designs to show us some options and worked with us to get the perfect planting plans, too. She is very knowledgeable about plants and knew what would work in our shady backyard, and what would do better in the sunny front yard. We thought she did a great job at a reasonable price and have recommended her to many other friends and neighbors.”